Helicopter pilot held at gunpoint managed to alert air-traffic control as he aided Quebec jailbreak

Quebec prison escape: Helicopter pilot alerted air-traffic control

When helicopter pilot Sébastien Foray picked up his two passengers in Mont-Tremblant, Que., on Sunday afternoon, it was supposed to be a routine one-hour sightseeing flight.

The men in their twenties said they wanted to fly over Saint-Jérôme, about 20 minutes south, a request that seemed normal enough for a helicopter company accustomed to people asking to fly over their homes or those of friends.

But as the four-seat Robinson R44 helicopter approached St-Jérôme at around 2:15 p.m., one of the passengers pulled a pistol and pointed it at Mr. Foray’s head.

“They told him to fly towards the prison and to land on the rooftop of the prison,” Yves Le Roux, the president of Passport-Hélico and Mr. Foray’s employer, said in an interview Monday. As directed, the pilot landed on the roof of the St-Jérôme provincial detention centre, by the wing holding the most dangerous prisoners.

The men in the helicopter opened the door and threw down mountaineering ropes that they had tied inside the helicopter. “Two inmates grabbed onto the ropes and they ordered the pilot to take off again,” said Mr. Le Roux, who spoke to his pilot Sunday after his ordeal ended.

In what’s recorded as the world’s first helicopter escape, New York millionaire Joel David Kaplan had spent nine years of his 27-year sentence for the murder of his business partner when he made his move. The businessman fled from the Mexican prison via chopper in 1971. The escape inspired the book The 10-Second Jailbreak: The Helicopter Escape of Joel David Kaplan and the 1975 movie Breakout.

The temperature was well below freezing and the inmates had trouble maintaining their grip as they dangled from the helicopter. “One was hanging by his hands and the other by his feet,” Mr. Le Roux said. “He couldn’t hold on, but his feet got tangled somehow and he was left hanging upside down.”

The pilot was told to fly toward a field about three minutes from the prison, where he landed. “The two inmates hopped into the helicopter and they ordered him to take off again to fly to a nearby hotel,” Mr. Le Roux recounted. The helicopter landed in the parking lot, where the escapees had a vehicle waiting.

“When they landed there, they put a T-shirt over his head and told him not to look where they were heading, and they just left the helicopter,” he said. “Of course when they left, he removed the T-shirt and just took off and went back to the base, which was not too far away.”

Mr. Foray, a native of the Savoie region of France who moved to Quebec in 2011 to learn to be a pilot, was treated for shock and released from hospital. Provincial police interviewed him and determined he is not a suspect. He declined interview requests Monday.

Reached in France, his father, Albert Foray, said he had just spoken to his son by Skype. “There is nothing to worry about. Perfect,” he said. “He suffered a bit of a psychological shock, but all is well.”

Mr. Le Roux praised the young pilot for maintaining his nerve under pressure. “He didn’t make any mistakes and it worked out fine,” he said. At one point, Mr. Foray managed to alert air-traffic control that he was in distress. “We don’t want to talk too much about that because there are different ways you can signal that you have a problem,” he said. “He did what he had to do, and it worked out.”

Provincial police spokesman Benoît Richard said on Monday officers on the ground managed to track the helicopter as it flew away from the detention centre. Aware that the suspects were “armed and extremely dangerous,” police deployed a vast team including tracking dogs, a tactical squad, a helicopter and negotiators to find them.

Cornered in the village of Chertsey, the suspects got out of their vehicle and exchanged gunfire with police, Mr. Richard said. Nobody was shot. Two suspects broke into a cottage, forcing the occupants to flee. Police circled the property and they were eventually captured at around 6:45 p.m. on Sunday. A third suspect had been arrested earlier by the side of a highway in Chertsey.

The fourth suspect was found hiding in a maple sugar shack in Chertsey and was arrested shortly after midnight.

“These people were found largely thanks to the vigilance of citizens, which we wish to highlight today,” Mr. Richard said.

Four men appeared in provincial court in St-Jérôme Monday afternoon to face charges including hijacking, kidnapping, prison escape, break and enter and illegal use of firearms.The charges indicate two pistols were used, a .38 calibre and a 9 mm.

Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau, 36, and Danny Provençal, 33, are identified as the two escapees. The men alleged to have commandeered the helicopter are Mathieu Steven Marchisio, 20, and Yagé Beaudoin, 23. All four face charges that carry possible life sentences.

Mr. Le Roux said helicopter pilots train for the possibility of a hijacking but never believe it could actually happen. “For what reason would you hijack a helicopter? You’re not going to fly to Mexico with that,” he said.

Now that prison escapes have been added to the short list of reason to hijack a helicopter, Quebec authorities are looking at imposing new security measures.

“It was the first time something like this has happened,” Clément Falardeau, a spokesman for the provincial Public Security Department, said Monday. Officials are now considering two options to prevent future such attempts. One is the installation of “anti-escape nets” and the other is restricting flights over provincial prisons below a certain altitude, Mr. Falardeau said.